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Yeonho stared through the windshield as he gripped the steering wheel.

Was his late eldest brother flicking ashes from heaven? The world outside was cloaked in such a thick haze that it was nearly impossible to see while driving. If he reached out into the air and closed his hand, he felt like he could catch dust or raindrops.

He entered the address of the trip’s destination, Platte Resort, into the GPS. The resort was named by his mother, the CEO, after ‘Schynige Platte’ in Switzerland. She had never actually been there, she’d just picked a nice-sounding name she found online.

Platte Resort had been scheduled to open last winter, but the outbreak of a viral infection halted the construction of the remaining C-wing condo building. The opening was postponed indefinitely. There was no reason to rush it during times like these.

Yeonho had packed two 24-inch suitcases in the trunk and headed to the deserted resort, without a single staff member present, for the sake of preparing for his graduation exhibition. As a photography major, he had conceptualized a project using forests and open fields. He had already completed all his required credits last semester, so he didn’t need to go to school anymore.

He planned to stay in Gangwon-do for four days and three nights, using one of the vacant condo rooms at the resort as his lodging. His family had given him permission to use the resort. Not that it mattered if they hadn’t. It belonged to his parents now, but one day, it would be his.

Yeonho hoped to become a photojournalist for a travel magazine. But he also knew very well that people don’t always get to do what they want in life.

He rolled down the side window and began to drive. He wanted to understand why everything around him looked as if the world had been put through a Gaussian blur filter. Even after driving more than 5 kilometers with the window open, his throat didn’t feel scratchy. In fact, the cool air felt refreshing. That ruled out dust or ashes from the deceased brother as the cause of the haze.

In his usual languid tone, Yeonho murmured quietly,

“So the fog’s this thick even at this hour, huh.”

It was 2 p.m. on a mild April day, neither hot nor cold, yet the fog was oddly out of place. Drowsiness began to wash over him. Ever since developing insomnia, he had become especially cautious while driving. To wake himself up, he pulled into a rest stop.

Yeonho, a non-smoker until recently, had started smoking to fight off the sudden bouts of sleepiness. Since sleep never came no matter how hard he tried, it made more sense to force his drooping vision to stay focused. Just as he stood in the smoking area with a cigarette between his lips, he overheard people whispering nearby.

–Is that guy a celebrity? Is he actor A? Or idol B? Who is he? Just take a picture.

Famous names floated past his ears. Then phone cameras were aimed at him. Yeonho immediately lowered his head and hid his face.

–He must be an idol, right? He’s hiding his face because he doesn’t want to get caught smoking.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. With or without permission, countless people wanted to take pictures of his face, one he considered unfortunate. His classmates in the photography department were constantly asking him to model for their work.

Yeonho had heard people praise his looks all his life, but he had always thought they were mocking him. If not, then it had to be a kind lie, to avoid hurting someone with such a horrible face.

To him, the reflection in the mirror was never beautiful. Even at a glance, his eyes, nose, and lips didn’t seem to be in the right place. His forehead and jaw looked dented. He hated his pale irises and his thin, drifting brown hair.

If he thought back far enough, there was probably a time when he genuinely believed someone’s words that he was “so beautiful, as if sculpted by the gods.” But at some point, looking in the mirror became unbearable. Since he couldn’t avoid mirrors entirely, each day felt like a torment. Even in photos, only a monstrous face remained. From then on, he grew to hate being photographed.

He didn’t know when or how his thoughts had changed. One day, while staring in the mirror, he just understood, his face was nauseating, and everyone had been lying.

By the time the cigarette between his fingers had burned down noticeably, the people chatting off in the distance shifted topics. Their words were ordinary but sent a sharp pain through Yeonho’s head.

–The weather’s so nice today. We really picked a perfect day for car camping.

–If it stays this clear, the stars will be beautiful tonight. And the photos will turn out great.

His head throbbed. The fog was so thick that he couldn’t even see his black sedan parked in the lot, yet they were talking like it was a clear day. Yeonho began to wonder if it was only his world that looked hazy because of cigarette smoke. But even after throwing away the butt and stepping out of the smoking area, the fog around him hadn’t lifted.

Something was definitely wrong.

But it wasn’t just today. Yeonho’s world had been wrong for a long time now. It felt like the whole world had conspired to deceive him.

There was one rule Yeonho always tried to follow while driving: “Even if I crash, let me be the only one who dies.”

Fortunately, he reached his destination alive. He headed for Condo A, which had been fully completed. Since the resort’s opening had been delayed, he and his brothers had privately used the place multiple times. So unlocking the door, finding new bedding and a keycard for the room, all of it was second nature to him.

As soon as he entered the room, Yeonho rushed to open his gray suitcase. He needed to take his sleeping pills and fall asleep.

“My meds… where are they?”

He always packed them in the same place for trips, but they weren’t there. He clearly remembered preparing four weeks’ worth last night after getting them from the hospital. Was that just a dream too? A hallucination?

“How much more broken am I going to get… Joo Yeonho.”

Fighting off nausea brought on by sleep deprivation, he looked up “Second Brother” in his phone and called. Seong Junyoung was the second son of his mother’s new husband, making him Yeonho’s second stepbrother.

[Hey, Yeonho. Did you get there okay?]

“Yeah, I got here, but I think I forgot my sleeping pills. I don’t think I can get another prescription out here. Can you help me?”

[Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll send you some by courier. Hang in there. What’s your room number? 315 again?]

“Yeah. Thanks. I’m in Building A.”

He always chose room 315 because his birthday was March 15. It wasn’t because he placed sentimental value on his birthday like a child, just that it was easier to use the same room every time.

After ending the call and letting out a breath, Yeonho realized something was off. The suitcase he’d just rifled through wasn’t gray, it was a pale, washed-out blue. The gray suitcase was still standing unopened by the door.

He unzipped the gray one and found the sleeping pills right where they should’ve been. He let out a quiet, tired laugh.

“I keep mixing up colors lately…”

Still, it was better that his memory of packing the pills hadn’t been a fantasy. The two suitcases had similar shades, and considering how foggy and drained he felt, mistaking them wasn’t exactly strange.

Before Platte Resort was built, this place had been called Seongam Resort.

His mother had operated a ski slope here with her late husband. After his father died, she remarried, and Yeonho gained a new stepfather and two stepbrothers. The new father was the CEO of a massive golf course, and together they built Seongam Resort. Yeonho had been seven at the time. His eldest brother was nineteen. His second brother was eight.

When Yeonho turned twenty-one, his eldest brother, the one who’d cared for him like a second father, died on the ski slope at the resort. Yeonho had been with him at the time.

He couldn’t remember what had happened during the accident. Not just that moment, but the entire year surrounding it had vanished from his memory. Even the phone he’d been using at the time was lost. He woke up in a hospital to find that his eldest brother was gone.

He had been hospitalized for a long time. Later, he was told that a college student visiting the resort had collided with his brother while snowboarding. The student confessed to being drunk at the time, and since the slope’s CCTV was out of order, there was no footage of what really happened. The student faced the appropriate punishment for his actions.

That was when strange things began to happen to Yeonho. Despite losing a year of memories, he still vividly remembered how much his brother had loved him. There were countless signs of that deep affection. And yet, for some reason, he hadn’t felt sad about his brother’s death. Not a single tear had fallen. His emotions and memories didn’t match.

Even messages saved on old phones from his childhood showed how much his brother loved him:

Yeonho, I love you.

I really do.

You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And from that point on, his reflection in the mirror began to collapse, contort, and crumble.

His parents pushed through their grief and began remodeling Seongam Resort into a much larger, full-scale complex. Yeonho didn’t resent them for trying to erase the place’s tragic past. He didn’t mind visiting with his family and spending time there. Even his younger brother recovered from the loss sooner than expected.

The problem was Yeonho himself.

He wasn’t sad about his brother’s death. There was no grief to overcome.

After much thought, he concluded that he might have psychopathic tendencies.

After a shower, he took two sleeping pills and collapsed on the bed without even drying his hair. Just as he was about to drift into unconsciousness, a sharp noise startled him awake.

Thud, thud. Ssscrrrape.

A heavy thudding followed by the dragging of something across the floor echoed from above. He shifted his eyes, scanning the furniture in his 315 unit. If someone was moving a single-person sofa upstairs, it would probably sound just like that.

Who else in the world would experience noise from the upstairs unit in an empty resort?

There was one. Joo Yeonho, who was not in his right mind.